The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy-MonkeyNotes Study Guide Summary/Free BookNotes/Chapter Summary/Analysis/Synopsis/Download Notes CONFLICT Protagonist The story revolves round the rise and fall of Michael Henchard. From a mere hay-trusser, he rises to become the leading corn and hay merchant of the area. He then becomes the Mayor of Casterbridge. However, his past action of selling his wife and child catch up with him, and circumstances turn against him, reducing him to penury. Because of his love for his stepdaughter, Elizabeth-Jane, he lies to Newson when the latter comes looking for her. He tells him that she had died a year ago. When Newson reappears, Henchard leaves Casterbridge a penniless man. He takes up his old profession of a hay-trusser. He dies in solitude, a broken and bitter man, without having effected a reconciliation with Elizabeth-Jane. Antagonist Michael Henchard is his own antagonist and brings about his own downfall.

The weaknesses of his character, including his drinking, his impulsiveness and his arrogance, make him sell his wife and daughter and lie to Elizabeth-Jane about her parentage; these, in turn, lead to his becoming a social outcast. After having great successes in Casterbridge, he dies a lonely and penniless man. Donald Farfrae is another antagonist to Henchard. His arrival in town changes everything for the protagonist. The two men have many conflicts and clashes, and the competitiveness within their personal lives, both in business and in love, creates the outward conflict in the novel. Farfrae, who outdoes Henchard in everything, does much to hasten Henchard's downfall. Climax In the court scene, one of the most dramatic moments in the novel, Henchard's past is finally exposed by the 'furmity woman'. From this point forward, Henchard's social and financial ruin is precipitated. Although at one point he is the most influential man in Casterbridge, his exposure, combined with his rash speculation, leads to his declaring bankruptcy in business and his becoming an outcast from society. Your browser does not support the IFRAME tag.

Outcome The novel is a dark tragedy in which Henchard faces total ruin and lonely death. Although Henchard seeks redemption for his misdeeds, it is too late. As a result of his actions, he dies an outcast, without having reconciled himself with society or Elizabeth-Jane. SHORT PLOT/CHAPTER SUMMARY (Synopsis) Michael Henchard, an itinerant hay-trusser, reaches Weydon Priors looking for work. He is accompanied by his wife Susan and their baby, Elizabeth-Jane. Though there are no jobs available, they head towards a spot where a fair is in progress and make their weary way to a tent where furmity is being sold. Michael Henchard quietly signals to the "'furmity woman'" to lace his with rum. When he has imbibed more than enough liquor, he rashly auctions his wife and child to a sailor for five guineas. The next day, when he recovers from his drunken stupor, he is filled with remorse. After making a futile effort to search for them, he leaves, vowing not to touch liquor for twenty-one years. Henchard tells the "'furmity woman'" his destination.

After a passage of eighteen years, Susan and Elizabeth-Jane again make their way to Weydon Priors. Newson, the sailor who has earlier purchased them, has been reported missing at sea. Giving him up for dead, Susan now searches for Henchard. All she tells Elizabeth-Jane is that he is a distant relative. With difficulty the "'furmity woman'" recalls Henchard and tells Susan he left Weydon Priors to go to Casterbridge; Susan sets out to find him there. On reaching Casterbridge, to her utter astonishment, she finds that Henchard has become a leading corn and hay merchant. He has even risen to the position of the Mayor of Casterbridge. Susan feels this is a situation that requires some serious thinking, for she feels she cannot confront her husband immediately. She and Elizabeth-Jane stay the night at the Three Mariner's. This inn is the very same inn in which Farfrae is currently staying. He is a Scotsman who has a renovating process for restoring bad wheat. Henchard is greatly impressed with him and persuades him to stay on in Casterbridge as his corn manager.

Later Farfrae is dismissed by Henchard, and the two of them become business rivals. When Henchard learns about Susan and Elizabeth-Jane, he wants to make amends. He remarries Susan and writes a letter of regret to Lucetta Templeman, a woman in Jersey, whom he had intended to marry. Unfortunately, Susan soon dies. Henchard then discovers, through a letter Susan left him, that Elizabeth-Jane is really Newson's daughter, his own having died years ago. At the news, his behavior undergoes a drastic change, and he becomes cold and critical of Elizabeth-Jane, whom he had earlier loved. Lucetta Templeman becomes a rich woman when her aunt leaves her an inheritance. She travels to Casterbridge with the hope of marrying Henchard. In Casterbridge, she encourages Elizabeth- Jane to come and live with her, as her companion; she hopes the girl's presence will give Henchard a pretext to visit and court her. He, however, stays away. Lucetta then meets Farfrae, and they fall in love and marry. Farfrae continues to prosper in business. He and Henchard now become rivals both in business and in love.

Henchard goes in to a period of great decline. His business fails due to his rash decisions, and he must declare bankruptcy. He has no option but to work for Farfrae. Then the "'furmity woman'" appears and exposes Henchard's past crimes. He loses all credibility in Casterbridge.. In the meantime, Elizabeth-Jane has effected a reconciliation with him, but he has also started drinking. Twenty-one years of abstinence have come to an end. Lucetta becomes apprehensive about Henchard disclosing their past relationship. She begs him to return the numerous love letters she had written to him. Henchard, who had intended to blackmail her, relents. Unfortunately, due to a grave error of judgment on his part, he asks Jopp to return them. Jopp, who nurses a grudge against Lucetta, Farfrae, and Henchard, opens and reads them aloud. The townspeople arrange a "skimmity-ride" through Casterbridge with Lucetta's and Henchard's effigies parading through town. Lucetta is so shocked that she is overcome with an epileptic fit, which kills her. She, however, tells Farfrae her secret before dying.

Henchard, who is now extremely poor, starts living with Elizabeth- Jane and accepts her as his daughter. He finds she is the only source of joy in his life. The thought of living without her is unbearable. Therefore, when Newson comes looking for his wife and daughter, Henchard lies and says that she is dead. Newson goes away. Henchard then begins to fear he will lose Elizabeth- Jane to love. Farfrae, now a widower, renews a courtship with Elizabeth-Jane. Henchard is horrified by this affair, but he does not oppose it. Newson soon returns to Casterbridge, for his has learned the truth about his daughter. Elizabeth-Jane is shocked to learn the truth about her past and disowns Henchard. He takes the only course open to him and leaves Casterbridge, a penniless man. He goes to work as a hay-trusser. A few months later, he hears of the wedding between Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane. Henchard desperately wants to see his daughter and beg forgiveness for lying to her.

When Henchard reappears in Casterbridge, Elizabeth-Jane shows she is annoyed with him for having lied to her and receives him like stranger. Heartbroken, Henchard goes away, without saying anything in self-defense. He dies alone, in utter despondency; only his former employer, Abel Whittle, is there to minister to his needs. He leaves behind a will that exposes his acute depression and despair at the time of his death. Elizabeth-Jane, who has had a change of heart, sets out with Farfrae to effect a reconciliation, but reaches him half an hour late. She reads his terrible will of renunciation, which expresses his bitterness with the world. SparkNotes: The Mayor of Casterbridge: Analysis of Major Characters Analysis of Major Characters Themes, Motifs & Symbols Michael Henchard At the end of The Mayor of Casterbridge, the ruined Michael Henchard wills that no one remember his name after his death. This request is profoundly startling and tragic, especially when one considers how important Henchard’s name has been to him during his lifetime.

After committing the abominable deed of selling his wife and child, Henchard wakes from a drunken stupor and wonders, first and foremost, if he told any of the fair-goers his name. Eighteen years pass between that scene on the heath of Weydon-Priors and Henchard’s reunion with Susan in Casterbridge, but we immediately realize the value that Henchard places on a good name and reputation. Not only has he climbed from hay-trusser to mayor of a small agricultural town, but he labors to protect the esteem this higher position affords him. When Susan and Elizabeth-Jane come upon the mayor hosting a banquet for the town’s most prominent citizens, they witness a man struggling to convince the masses that, despite a mismanaged harvest, he is an honest person with a worthy name. As he stares out at an unhappy audience made up of grain merchants who have lost money and common citizens who, without wheat, are going hungry, Henchard laments that he cannot undo the past. He relates grown wheat metaphorically to the mistakes of the past—neither can be taken back. Although Henchard learns this lesson at the end of Chapter IV, he fails to internalize it.

If there is, indeed, a key to his undoing, it is his inability to let go of his past mistakes. Guilt acts like a fuel that keeps Henchard moving toward his own demise. Unable to forget the events that took place in the furmity-woman’s tent, he sets out to punish himself again and again. While he might have found happiness by marrying Lucetta, for instance, Henchard determines to make amends for the past by remarrying a woman he never loved in the first place. Possessed of a “restless and self-accusing soul,” Henchard seems to seek out situations that promise further debasement. Although Donald Farfrae eventually appropriates Henchard’s job, business, and even his loved ones, it is Henchard who insists on creating the competition that he eventually loses. Although Henchard loses even the ability to explain himself—“he did not sufficiently value himself to lessen his sufferings by strenuous appeal or elaborate argument”—he never relinquishes his talent of endurance. Whatever the pain, Henchard bears it. It is this resilience that elevates him to the level of a hero—a man, ironically, whose name deserves to be remembered.

Donald Farfrae Farfrae, the young Scotchman, serves as a foil (a character whose actions or emotions contrast with and thereby accentuate those of another character) for Henchard. Whereas will and intuition determine the course of Henchard’s life, Farfrae is a man of intellect. He brings to Casterbridge a method for salvaging damaged grain, a system for reorganizing and revolutionizing the mayor’s business, and a blend of curiosity and ambition that enables him to take interest in—and advantage of—the agricultural advancements of the day (such as the seed-sowing machine). Although Henchard soon comes to view Farfrae as his adversary, the Scotchman’s victories are won more in the name of progress than personal satisfaction. His primary motive in taking over Casterbridge’s grain trade is to make it more prosperous and prepare the village for the advancing agricultural economy of the later nineteenth century. He does not intend to dishonor Henchard. Indeed, even when Henchard is at his most adversarial—during his fight with Farfrae in the barn, for instance—the Scotchman reminds himself of the fallen mayor’s circumstances, taking pains to understand and excuse Henchard’s behavior.

In his calm, measured thinking, Farfrae is a model man of science, and Hardy depicts him with the stereotypical strengths and weaknesses of such people. He possesses an intellectual competence so unrivaled that it passes for charisma, but throughout the novel he remains emotionally distant. Although he wins the favor of the townspeople with his highly successful day of celebration, Farfrae fails to feel any emotion too deeply, whether it is happiness inspired by his carnival or sorrow at the death of his wife. In this respect as well he stands in bold contrast to Henchard, whose depth of feeling is so profound that it ultimately dooms him. Elizabeth-Jane Newson Elizabeth-Jane undergoes a drastic transformation over the course of the novel, even though the narrative does not focus on her as much as it does on other characters. As she follows her mother across the English countryside in search of a relative she does not know, Elizabeth-Jane proves a kind, simple, and uneducated girl. Once in Casterbridge, however, she undertakes intellectual and social improvement: she begins to dress like a lady, reads voraciously, and does her best to expunge rustic country dialect from her speech.

This self-education comes at a painful time, for not long after she arrives in Casterbridge, her mother dies, leaving her in the custody of a man who has learned that she is not his biological daughter and therefore wants little to do with her. In terms of misery, one could easily argue that Elizabeth-Jane has a share equal to that of Henchard or Lucetta. Unlike these characters, however, Elizabeth-Jane suffers in the same way she lives—with a quiet kind of self-possession and resolve. She lacks Lucetta’s sense of drama and lacks her stepfather’s desire to bend the will of others to her own. Thus, when Henchard cruelly dismisses her or Lucetta supplants her place in Farfrae’s heart, Elizabeth-Jane accepts these circumstances and moves on with life. This approach to living stands as a bold counterpoint to Henchard’s, for Henchard cannot bring himself to let go of the past and relinquish his failures and unfulfilled desires.

If Henchard’s determination to cling to the past is partly responsible for his ruin, then Elizabeth-Jane’s talent for “making limited opportunities endurable” accounts for her triumphal realization—unspectacular as it might be—that “happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.” Lucetta Templeman Like Michael Henchard, Lucetta Templeman lives recklessly according to her passions and suffers for it. Before arriving in Casterbridge, Lucetta becomes involved in a scandalously indiscreet affair with Henchard that makes her the pariah of Jersey. After settling in High-Place Hall, Lucetta quickly becomes enamored with Henchard’s archrival, Farfrae. Their relationship is peaceful until the town learns of Lucetta’s past relationship with Henchard, whereupon they make her the subject of a shameful “skimmity-ride.” Although warned of these likely consequences, Lucetta proceeds to love whomever she wants however she pleases.

Still, her character lacks the boldness and certainty of purpose that would elevate her to the level of “the isolated, damned, and self-destructive individualist” that critic Albert Guerard describes as “the great nineteenth-century myth.” Lucetta emerges not as heroic but as childish and imprudent. Her love for Farfrae, for example, hinges on her refusal to accept Henchard’s visits for several days, a refusal that makes her seem more petty than resolute. Similarly, her rapidly shifting affections—Farfrae eclipses Henchard as the object of her desire with amazing, almost ridiculous speed—brand her as an emotionally volatile Victorian female, one whose sentiments are strong enough to cause the most melodramatic of deaths. More Help The Mayor of Casterbridge Summary The Mayor of Casterbridge Summary NEXT How It All Goes Down The novel opens with Michael Henchard and his wife, Susan, traveling through the country with their baby daughter, Elizabeth-Jane. They stop for supper and Henchard gets totally drunk on rum. He offers to sell his wife and daughter to the highest bidder.

He isn't entirely serious, but when a sailor offers five guineas (a lot of money to a poor man back then), Henchard takes it. Susan thinks it's a binding arrangement and that she now legally belongs to the sailor, so she takes the baby and leaves. When Henchard wakes up sober and sorry, he tries to trace his wife and daughter. No luck. He swears a solemn oath not to drink any more alcohol for twenty years. After several months, he learns that the sailor has probably taken Susan and Elizabeth-Jane to North America, and he gives up hope of ever finding them. He settles down in the town of Casterbridge. The scene changes. It's eighteen years later. Susan and her daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, are traveling to Casterbridge to track down Michael Henchard. The sailor, whose name was Newson, has died, and Susan (who now calls herself Mrs. Newson, since she thought that her marriage was actually legally transferred to Newson) has decided that it's only right to return to her first husband to see if he can do anything for Elizabeth-Jane.

When they arrive in Casterbridge, they find that Henchard has worked his way up from a lowly hay harvester to a hay and grain merchant. He's wealthy now and has even been elected Mayor of the town. When he learns that Susan and Elizabeth-Jane are not only still alive, but in Casterbridge, he decides that it's only right to take them in and support them. But, as you might guess, he doesn't want to admit to anyone that he auctioned off his wife eighteen years earlier. So he suggests that Susan live in Casterbridge and call herself the widow Mrs. Newson, and he'll pretend to fall in love with her and propose to marry her. Then they can all live together, with Elizabeth-Jane as his "stepdaughter" instead of as his real daughter. Susan agrees, they follow the plan, and Susan and Elizabeth-Jane are soon living in the Mayor's house. Around this same time, Henchard hires a young Scottish man, Donald Farfrae, to help manage his affairs. Farfrae has a much better head for business than Henchard does, and he quickly whips Henchard's business into shape.

The two men become friends, and Elizabeth-Jane develops a crush on Farfrae. Henchard confides everything to Farfrae, including the drunken auction eighteen years earlier. He even admits to him that before Susan and Elizabeth-Jane showed up, he had had a romantic entanglement with a young lady from Jersey (the British one, not the one with the Shore). The young lady was head over heels in love with him and didn't hide it, and everyone assumed they'd been sleeping together. They hadn't, but her reputation was ruined anyway. She wanted him to marry her to save her reputation, and he was going to – until Susan showed up. Farfrae is sympathetic when he hears the story and feels sorry for the other girl. Still, he agrees that Henchard did the right thing by remarrying his original wife. Then things start to unravel. Henchard becomes jealous of Farfrae because the employees like him better. He fires Farfrae, who starts up his own business across town and does really well. Then Susan dies.

Henchard tells Elizabeth-Jane that she's his real daughter, saying that he and Susan had been "separated" from each other for a long time (he doesn't admit to having auctioned them off). But then he reads a letter that Susan left for him before her death admitting that Elizabeth-Jane isn't his real daughter. She's actually the daughter of Captain Newson, and the original Elizabeth-Jane (the baby who was auctioned off along with Susan) died as a baby. Crazy, huh?! Henchard decides he doesn't really want Elizabeth-Jane around anymore and starts being mean to her. And the drama continues. Elizabeth-Jane moves out of Henchard's house to live with a wealthy young woman who has just moved to Casterbridge. Turns out, that young woman is the one who was in love with Henchard before! Her name is Lucetta, but she changed her last name from Le Sueur to Templeman after inheriting a lot of money from a wealthy aunt named Miss Templeman. She has moved to Casterbridge because she heard of Susan's death and still wants Henchard to marry her.

Henchard feels guilty about having messed up her reputation (even though he still swears they never slept together) so he's all for marrying her. But then Lucetta meets Farfrae. Lucetta is a total flirt and Farfrae falls for her. Lucetta doesn't want to marry Henchard anymore, but she's worried that someone will find out about her past relationship with him. She'd written him a lot of steamy love letters and is worried that someone might show them to Farfrae. Henchard is angry that she doesn't want to marry him anymore, and he tries to blackmail her into promising to be his wife. Lucetta panics, then marries Farfrae on the sly. Farfrae knows nothing about Lucetta's past relationship with Henchard and has no clue why Henchard, who used to be his best friend, is acting like such a jerk. Henchard's business has been failing ever since Farfrae stopped working for him, and finally he has to declare bankruptcy. Farfrae buys Henchard's house and business. Henchard ends up being hired to work for Farfrae as a lowly laborer, which really hurts his pride.

He is still jealous of Farfrae and is tempted to show him Lucetta's old love letters as a way of getting back at them both. Lucetta tries to persuade Henchard to give her all the old love letters so that she can burn them. Henchard reluctantly agrees. But he sends the letters in a package with someone who isn't trustworthy. The messenger opens the package and shows the letters to a few people in a bar. The rumors about Lucetta's past relationship with Henchard start flying around. A few drunken townspeople decide it would be funny to have a parade with a model of Henchard and Lucetta cuddling together. They have their drunken procession one night while Farfrae is out of town. Lucetta hears about it and is so upset that she gets hysterical and then dies. The drunken townspeople feel kind of bad about that. They didn't mean to kill her. Henchard realizes that he's been a total jerk to Elizabeth-Jane and apologizes. Elizabeth-Jane moves back in with him, still thinking she's his real daughter and that Captain Newson, the man who brought her up, was only her stepfather.

Then one day, while Elizabeth-Jane is taking a nap, Captain Newson shows up at Henchard's door. (Wait, we thought he was dead!) Turns out that Newson hadn't really drowned when Susan thought he did. He asks about Elizabeth-Jane. Henchard is afraid that Newson will tell Elizabeth-Jane that he's her real father and that she'll leave. So Henchard lies and says Elizabeth-Jane is dead. Newson leaves town immediately, but Henchard is paranoid that Newson will return and Elizabeth-Jane will find out about his big fat lie. After Lucetta's death, Farfrae is at first heartbroken, but then he begins to realize that a much better woman than Lucetta has been there this whole time. Elizabeth-Jane still loves him, and they start thinking about getting married. Henchard has been uneasy ever since Newson's visit, and now that Elizabeth-Jane is going to get married, he decides he should just leave Casterbridge altogether. But he can't bring himself to go too far away from Elizabeth-Jane – he wanders around the countryside near Casterbridge for weeks.

Newson returns soon after Henchard leaves and tells Elizabeth-Jane the truth. She is understandably angry at Henchard for having lied to her about being her real father and for send Newson away. After she gets married, though, she starts to feel sorry for her stepfather. She searches for him but only finds him after he has died. The Wife Sale in "The Mayor of Casterbridge" [ Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Authors —> Thomas Hardy ] In the opening chapter of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) Michael Henchard sells his wife, much to the incredulity of contemporary critics who could not believe, apparently, that such transactions had ever occurred on English soil in the nineteenth century. And yet the old ballad sheet "Wives for Sale" (reproduced in the 1988 number of The Thomas Hardy Year Book from an illustration in Samuel Pyeatt Menefee's ethnographic study of British popular divorce [Oxford: Blackwells, 1981]) indicates that in rural districts this was a mutually-agreeable way among the peasantry of dissolving dysfunctional marriages.

Hardy justifies his use of the plot device early in Chapter 4: It may seem strange to sophisticated minds that a sane young matron could believe in the seriousness of such a transfer; and were there not numerous other instances of the same belief the thing might scarcely be credited. But she was by no means the first or last peasant woman who had religiously adhered to her purchaser, as too many rural records show. In the Macmillan edition of the novel published for Canadian high schools in 1962, editors Andrew A. Orr and Vivian De Sola Pinto point out that the novelist had researched the wife-selling tradition in British newspapers of the early nineteenth century: Thomas Hardy had heard of such a case at Portland [not far from Dorchester, on the English Channel], and that it suggested this incident to him. In the "Observer" of March 24, 1833, the following extract from the "Blackburn Gazette" appeared: "Sale of a Wife--A grinder named Calton sold his wife publicly in the market place, Stockport, on Monday week. She was purchased by a shop-mate of the husband for a gallon of beer.

The fair one, who had a halter round her neck, seemed quite agreeable." This extract suggests that the parties in the transaction (unlike those in The Mayor of Casterbridge) were all well-known to one another, and the husband, motivated by a desire for a quantity of beer, may have been an alcoholic, as Hardy intimates by Susan's remarks as well as by Henchard's teetotaling pledge that young Michael Henchard was. The halter around the woman's neck, a demeaning detail to modern readers, undoubtedly connects the affair with the auctioning off of livestock at agricultural fairs such as that in Weyhill (Hardy's "Weydon-Priors), held near Andover in Hampshire in the second week of October ever since Queen Elizabeth granted it a charter to do so in 1599.

In the 1997 Penguin edition (revised in 2003), Keith Wilson notes that Hardy copied into his "Facts from Newspapers, Histories, Biographies, & other chronicles" notebook (now in the Dorset County Museum, Dorchester) newspaper accounts of three such sales, in particular the Dorset County Chronicle, whose issues from the 1820s he explored in 1884 in preparing to write The Mayor of Casterbridge. Wilson remarks upon a particular article from the decade in which the tale is initially set: Given the wife's price and the horse-trading mode of her delivery, one of these entries, dated 6 December 1827, is particularly relevant: 'Selling wife. At Buckland, nr. Frome, a labring [sic] man named Charles Pearce sold his wife to a shoemaker named Elton for ï¿½5, & delivered her in a halter in the public street. She seemed very willing.

Bells rang.' See Christine Winfield, "Factual Sources of Two Episodes in The Mayor of Casterbridge (Nineteenth-Century Fiction 25 [1970], 224-31. [p. 328] SparkNotes: The Mayor of Casterbridge: Chapters I–II The Mayor of Casterbridge Themes, Motifs & Symbols Chapters III–VI In presence of this scene after the other there was a natural instinct to abjure man as the blot on an otherwise kindly universe. . . . (See Important Quotations Explained ) Summary: Chapter I In the first half of the nineteenth century, a young hay-trusser named Michael Henchard, his wife, Susan, and their baby daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, silently walk along a road in the English countryside toward a large village called Weydon-Priors. They meet a turnip-hoer, and Henchard asks if there is work or shelter to be found in the town. The pessimistic laborer tells the young man that there is neither. The family eventually comes upon a fair and stops for food.

They enter a furmity tent, where a woman sells a kind of gruel made from corn, flour, milk, raisins, currants and other ingredients. After watching the woman spike several bowls of the porridge with rum, Henchard slyly sends up his bowl to be spiked as well. The woman accommodates him again and again, and soon Henchard is drunk. As he continues to drink, he bemoans his lot as a married man. If only he were “a free man,” he tells the group gathered in the furmity tent, he would “be worth a thousand pound.” When the sound of an auctioneer selling horses interrupts Henchard’s musings, he jokes that he would be willing to sell his wife if someone wanted to buy her. Susan begs him to stop his teasing, declaring that “this is getting serious. O!—too serious!” Henchard persists nevertheless. He begins to bark out prices like an auctioneer, upping the cost of his wife and child when no one takes his offer. When the price reaches five guineas, a sailor appears and agrees to the trade.

Distraught, but glad to leave her husband, Susan go off with Elizabeth-Jane and the sailor. Henchard collapses for the night in the furmity tent. Summary: Chapter II Henchard wakes the next morning, wondering if the events of the previous night have been a dream. When he finds the sailor’s money in his pocket, however, he realizes that he has, in fact, sold his wife and child. He deliberates over his situation for some time and decides that he must “get out of this as soon as [he] can.” He exits the tent and makes his way unnoticed from the Weydon fairgrounds. After a mile or so of walking, he stops and wonders if he told his name to anyone at the fair. He is surprised that Susan agreed to go with the sailor and curses her for bringing him “into this disgrace.” Still, he resolves to find Susan and Elizabeth-Jane and bear the shame, which he reasons is “of his own making.” Henchard continues on his way, and, three or four miles later, he comes upon a village and enters a church there.

He falls to his knees on the altar, places a hand on the Bible, and pledges not to drink alcohol for twenty-one years, the same number of years that he has been alive. He continues the search for Susan and Elizabeth-Jane for several months and eventually arrives at a seaport where a family fitting the description of the sailor, Susan, and Elizabeth-Jane has recently departed. He decides to abandon his search and makes his way to the town of Casterbridge. Analysis: Chapters I–II Many critics believe that Michael Henchard, the “Man of Character” to whom the subtitle of The Mayor of Casterbridge refers, is one of Thomas Hardy’s greatest creations. Henchard is constructed with a great deal of ethical and psychological complexity, and the first two chapters show some of the contradictions of his character. As a young man, Henchard is volatile, headstrong, and passionate. Even before Henchard works himself into a fury in the furmity tent, Susan’s meek behavior as she walks along beside him (“she kept as close to his side as was possible without actual contact”) implies his volatile and potentially violent nature.

The events that take place in the furmity tent at the fair demonstrate a cycle into which Henchard falls frequently throughout the novel. After finding himself in a shameful situation—this time, having sold his wife and child—he takes full responsibility for his mistakes and sets out to correct them. In fact, his desire to make amends is overpowering. He spends several months searching for his wife and child, proving that his remorse is not halfhearted. This audacious spirit is a hallmark of Henchard’s character, as he switches quickly from ungrateful misogyny to sincere penitence. Ultimately, though, critics have remained interested in Henchard because his success in atoning for his transgressions is ambiguous. Although Henchard’s search for his wife seems to be an example of honest contrition, his true motivation is more likely concern over his personal honor. When Henchard wakes, his remorse stems more from a fear of being disdained than from any sense of moral irresponsibility. His interest in his good name plays a significant role in his sacrifice of personal satisfaction when he swears off alcohol and determines to find his wife.

Before he begins to scour the English countryside for his wife and child, he reflects that it is not his own but rather his wife’s “idiotic simplicity” that has brought disgrace on him. As he stands outside the fairgrounds at Weydon-Priors, anxiously wondering whether he revealed his name to anybody in the furmity tent, Henchard displays an obsession with public opinion concerning his character that greatly shapes his actions and personality. Critic Irving Howe refers to this trait as Henchard’s “compulsive and self-lacerating pride.” Henchard’s initial irresponsibility suggests that the novel’s subtitle may not be an accurate description of him. In a way, then, the subtitle foreshadows Henchard’s transition to a man of character. Though Hardy resented being labeled a pessimist, the The Mayor of Casterbridge is at times bleakly realistic. Hardy described himself as a meliorist—one who believes that the universe tends toward improvement and that human beings can enjoy this progress as long as they recognize their proper place in the natural order of things—but the world that the novel describes seems pessimistic and difficult.

Hardy uses Susan Henchard, who has “the hard, half--apathetic expression of one who deems anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance except, perhaps, fair play,” to demonstrate the importance of realistically understanding the natural order of things. We get the sense that the natural world, embodied by “Time and Chance,” has little interest in human life or misery. Hardy substantiates this idea by inserting an image of several horses lovingly rubbing their necks together after the ridiculous scene in the furmity tent. Juxtaposing compassion and heartlessness, Hardy shows us that love and violence are competing aspects of both human behavior and the natural world. More Help The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy-MonkeyNotes Study Guide Summary/Free BookNotes/Chapter Summary/Analysis/Synopsis/Download Notes CHAPTER 1 Summary The novel opens with the introduction of three figures, Michael Henchard, his wife Sarah, and their baby. They are all heading toward Weydon Priors in Upper Wessex. Henchard is a hay-trusser who hopes to find work. On the way, he is depressed to learn from a local that no jobs are available.

When the trio arrives at Weydon Priors, a fair is in full swing, and they decide to attend. The travelers, however, have no heart for the gaiety and fun and head straight for a refreshment tent. While there, the young man realizes that the "'furmity woman'" is generously lacing the mixture with rum and signals her to do so for him. After drinking four basins, Henchard becomes overbearing, argumentative, and quarrelsome. He begins to talk of the ruin of young men by getting married early, using his own life as an example. Impulsively, he offers to sell his wife for five guineas, and his wife Susan defiantly says she will go with whomever he sells her to. A sailor named Newson buys her and her daughter, Elizabeth-Jane. The three of them leave the tent, but not before Sarah throws her wedding ring at Henchard, who has fallen asleep due to the liquor. The chapter ends with the 'furmity woman' leaving Henchard and closing up shop Notes The opening chapter immediately grips the reader's attention.

It is improbable, scandalous, and deplorable that a man would auction his wife and daughter to the highest bidder, even in a state of inebriation. Through this startling opening event, the reader quickly understands Michael Henchard's shortcomings; he is impulsive and suffers from a love of alcohol. In the chapter, the drinking, after a weary journey, loosens his tongue, and he openly states his innermost thoughts. He feels that his ambitions have been thwarted due to his early marriage at the age of eighteen. It is obvious that he would like to get rid of a wife and child who have become burdensome to him. Your browser does not support the IFRAME tag. Susan, Henchard's wife, appears to be a weak woman who cannot stand up to her husband. She meekly accepts that her husband is selling her, and almost seems to welcome being rid of him. She obviously knows his weaknesses and has often witnessed his blustery manner and impatience. It is apparent that she is unhappy and bitter at a young age; she feels that she has reached the end of her rope and yet has seen no way out of her unhappy marriage.

Being sold by her husband allows her a way out of the relationship without resorting to prostitution or hard labor, the only choices of income for a woman of her class. Although she may be a simple person, she considers the sale of herself binding and valiantly goes off with the sailor. What should be noted in this first chapter is that the descriptions of the countryside and the dramatic setting of the auction testify to Hardy's skill as a storyteller. He gives the reader vivid word pictures of the area around Weydon Priors, the activity of the fair, and the horror of the sale of Susan and her baby. The rustic spectators in the tent, who comment on the action, serve as a Greek chorus, first telling Susan not to take her husband seriously and then realizing that she would be better off with the sailor. Hardy's skillful use of dialect sets the tone and atmosphere, of the chapter and the whole novel. The tone of the novel is also set by the barren setting of Weydon Priors, which is symbolic of the marriage between Henchard and Sarah.

The scene of two horses lovingly rubbing their necks against each other at the end of the chapter draws a sharp contrast between the unconditional friendliness of beasts and the cruel lack of love between husband and wife. CHAPTER 2 Summary Waking up the next morning, Henchard slowly recalls the incident of the previous evening. He slips out of the tent unnoticed, feeling remorse over his actions. At the same time, he is annoyed that Susan has taken him so literally and left with the sailor. He feels she should have known the befuddled condition he was in and known he was not serious about the sale. He concludes that because of her meekness, she accepted the sale as binding. In remorse for his actions, Henchard does two things. First, he pledges not to drink for twenty-one years, the same number as his age. Secondly, he searches long and hard for his wife and child. When he cannot find them, he chooses to settle in Casterbridge, a very rural part of Wessex. He tells the 'furmity woman' where he is going, which proves later to be a foolish mistake. Notes When Henchard wakes up from his drunken stupor, his befuddled state of mind is aptly drawn.

The realization of his blunder unfolds in stages that are economically and dramatically delineated. First he finds the wedding ring that his wife threw at him; it is shining amongst the remnants of the previous night's indulgences. Then he feels the rustling bank notes that the sailor has left in his breast pocket for payment of his wife and baby. Slowly, the reality of his actions dawns on him, and he becomes repentant. He promises not to take another drink of alcohol for twenty-one years and goes out in search of his wife and daughter. Several other times in the novel, Henchard will show similar impulsive outbursts, always followed by repentance. Henchard is obviously a man who acts on the spur of the moment, without thinking about consequences and then tries to blame others for the errors of his ways. He attempts to pin the blame of the auction on his wife, saying that Susan was too meek and took the sale too seriously. The reader is led to believe that Henchard's search for his wife and daughter is superficial; he never reveals the circumstances of what has happened to anyone he queries about his wife and daughter's whereabouts.

He is obviously trying to protect himself more than he is trying to locate his missing family. Henchard's pride and his unwillingness to expose himself as a feckless person will cause him great pain and suffering in the course of the novel. The first two chapters introduce the major characters of the novel and set up the dramatic conflict of the story, much like the prelude of a Greek tragedy. The chapters cleverly give insight into personalities and foreshadowings of things to come. Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Bookmark this page Manage My Reading List Summary Michael Henchard, an unemployed hay-trusser "of fine figure, swarthy and stern in aspect," his wife Susan, and their little child Elizabeth-Jane are wearily approaching the Wessex village of Weydon-Priors at the end of a late-summer day in the year 1826. When she looks at the child, Susan is pretty, but her face often has "the hard, half-apathetic expression" of one who expects the worst. They learn from a passer-by that there is no employment in the village.

A fair is still in progress, and once the trio has arrived Michael attempts to enter a refreshment tent which advertises "Good Home-brewed Beer, Ale, and Cyder." However, Susan persuades him to enter the booth where "furmity" is sold, since the food is nourishing even if repulsive in appearance. In the tent Michael pays the furmity woman, "a haggish creature of about fifty," to spike his basin of furmity with large dosages of rum. He quickly finishes a number of well-laced portions and, in a "quarrelsome" mood, begins to bewail the fact that he has ruined his life by marrying too young. As the liquor takes hold, Michael offers his young wife for sale to the highest bidder. Susan, who has experienced his outrageous displays before, swears that if Michael persists, she will take the child and go with the highest bidder. She ignores the advice of "a buxom staylace dealer" and stands up for the bidding. Michael continues the bidding with renewed vigor and raises the price to five guineas for wife and child. The staylace dealer rebukes him to no effect.

Before long, a sailor offers to meet Michael's terms. With the appearance of "real cash the jovial frivolity of the scene departed," and the crowd of listeners "waited with parting lips." Michael accepts the sailor's offer, pocketing the money with an air of finality. Susan and Elizabeth-Jane leave with the sailor, but before they depart she turns to Michael and, sobbing bitterly, flings her wedding ring in his face. The staylace vendor says: "I glory in the woman's sperrit." The shocked spectators — who until now had thought it all a joke — quickly depart, leaving Michael to his own conscience. Within a few moments he falls into a drunken slumber. The furmity woman closes up shop, and Michael is left in the dark, snoring loudly. Analysis The physical surroundings in this chapter serve to reinforce the dramatic movement of the unpleasant events. The road toward Weydon-Priors is barren, the leaves on the trees are dull green, and powdered dust covers the road and shrubbery. There is no employment in this village, and, as Michael and Susan learn from a passing stranger, "Pulling down is more the nater of Weydon . .

." As we gather soon enough, Michael is portrayed as one given over to fits of despondent self-pity, violent outbursts, and irrevocable spur-of-the-moment decisions. Michael has too much of a liking for strong drink: He at first wants to enter the tent where beer and ale are sold; he is not satisfied with one or two bowls of spiked furmity; he becomes boisterous from the effects; after he has sold his wife, he falls into a stupor. Hardy is, of course, showing that at this point the flaw in Michael's character is aggravated by his liking for drink, which leads him to commit an outrageous act that haunts him for years and finally proves to be his downfall. Why does Susan go with the sailor? First of all, Hardy has shown that the couple's marital relationship is not healthy, and from his opening descriptions we can easily imagine the silent, endless day's journey passed in an "atmosphere of stale familiarity." Also, it must be remembered that in the early part of the nineteenth century women often had no trades by which they could support themselves in a decent manner. Women were usually completely dependent upon their husbands for their sustenance. Susan realizes all these things.

Furthermore, aside from the emotional justification she has for leaving — that is, being sold like a common streetwalker to the highest bidder — she also realizes that Michael has disclaimed all responsibility toward her and the child. Under these circumstances, Susan's choice is understandable. Hardy lets the reader know in the first sentence that the novel will be laid in Wessex. "Wessex" is an ancient name for the West Saxon kingdom of the Middle Ages, which Hardy revived as a term for the region in which he set most of his novels and stories. (Unlike "Essex," "Sussex," and "Middlesex," it is a term no longer used geographically.) Wessex comprises Dorsetshire and parts of other western English counties, which have a number of local features exploited to great effect by Hardy. By the time he published The Mayor of Casterbridge, Hardy had built a considerable following for his Wessex novels and tales: The reader could expect colorful dialogue, faithfully reproduced; a certain half-humorous, half-crabbed character in the natives; a good deal of poetic treatment of both town and country.

The region was large enough not to be too confining for a novelist handling important themes, but small enough to impart color and character to setting. Glossary fustian coarse cotton. thimble-riggers tricksters, conjurers. The expression may refer to the trick of trying to guess under which of three thimbles a pea is hidden. The hand of the "thimble-rigger" was, of course, faster than the eye of the spectator. Weydon-Priors a village in upper Wessex, probably the fictitious name for Weyhill in northwest Hampshire. begad By God! A slightly toned down oath. 'vation salvation. rheumy sniffling, runny-nose. The word refers to having a cold. 'od shortened from the exclamation, "God!," so as to avoid profanity. keacorn dialect for throat.

Question: In which book does Michael Henchard auction his wife and child?
Answer: The Mayor of Casterbridge